Roses Are Blue...

Thank you, Austin! Goodnight!

Is that line getting old? You'd tell me, right? Like if I had a poppy seed in my teeth or toilet paper on my shoe? I hope so. Anyway, phew, Renegade Austin was FUN. I could go on for hours so I'll try to spare you and just stick to the highlights. And obviously the biggest highlight was the stuff! The crafts were so stinkin' cool. These are some of the goodies I bought (minus the super awesome prints that are still en route in their safe, flat packaging):

Another highlight was Austin's Minor Mishap Marching Band marching up and down the aisles. I love marching bands and this one was awesome. They even had a little hula hooper! But the aisles were too narrow so she was just marching and bouncing her hoop. Sadly the photos all came out blurry so you'll have to use your imagination. Here's a picture of a screaming guitar kid instead:

Speaking of guitar kids, my favorite customer was an adorable little 2 yr-old boy named Shane. His super cool parents let him pick out one of my kid's guitar straps for his guitar which they said he actually plays. I can only imagine how cute that must be... He picked the green guitar. My favorite.

The last-but-not-least highlight was meeting Jenny Hart of Sublime Stitching (she's the embroidery guru for those of you who don't know). AND having her ask to photograph my embroidered sign! I tried to be cool and not get all fan girl on her but I doubt it worked. It did help that I didn't recognize her when she actually asked about the sign and didn't find out it was her until I stopped by her booth to introduce myself and she assured me that we had, in fact, met the day before...way to go, huh? Back to my rookie moves again.

Anyway, there was so much more...amazing tattoos, adorable babies, adorable dogs, bands, dj's, crafting booths, raffles...it was a fun, fun weekend. Thank you to everyone who came by the booth to say hi and to all of my new customers! And a super-huge extra-special thank you to my awesome friend, Heather, who made the trip with me and was indispensable. And quite the two-stepper although she likes to be coy about it.

Thank you, Asheville! Good night!

Ok, so if you missed The Big Crafty Holiday Fair in Asheville this Sunday, y'all totally missed out!  And I'm not just saying that because I was there.  It was super cool.  Awesome vendors, amazing stuff, Santa Claus, cupcakes...free beer.  I mean, c'mon.  It doesn't get better than cupcakes and free beer.  Plus it was in Asheville which is such a cool little town.  And it even snowed!  So, plan on it for next year.  Even if you have to drive a little.

I want to say thank you to everyone who stopped by the booth, thank you to all of my customers and thank you to all of the sponsors & planners who made it all happen.  I also must thank my own personal sponsor, my fabulous momma (that's her hiding back there), for coming with me, for feeding me (SO well!) and for putting us up in the nicest B & B in Asheville, the Hill House (without her it would have been sofa city for me...)  Not to mention for schlepping boxes, sitting for hours and helping me and all of the customers all day long...thank you, Mom!  Oh, and I need to thank Terry and Bill, the wonderful innkeepers at Hill House, for such phenomenal breakfasts (omg, crème brûlée french toast...*drools*), cozy accommodations and delightful company (oh, and the bottomless cookie jar (!) and divinely evil treats...) 

I will be listing the items I still have in the shop today so for those of you who couldn't make it to Asheville, you can still shop!  Yay!  And maybe if you are lucky you even have snow where you are.

"Obsessed" is a strong word...

With all of my hoop talk lately, my friend, Pam, coined a new nickname for me: The Happy Hooper.  Cute, no?  Well, I liked it so much I decided to draw it up and make a shirt out of it.  This Happy Hooper (clearly not modeled after me if you know me) is supposed to look like a retro pin-up girl (which is um, NOT my body type no matter how much padding I use...)  She is done almost exclusively in the stem stitch.  I have a few other versions of her that I like as well so I am working on some embroidery patterns/kits/shirts for the shop.  They should be ready in the next couple of weeks...assuming I can stop hooping long enough to work on them...I'll keep you posted.

Happy Easter! What?

I SAID, "HAPPY EASTER!" 

Ok, just one more interruption before we get back to the simple fixes.  It's spring!  Well, tomorrow will be anyway.  And that means Easter is just around the corner.  If you were with me last year then these perpetual chocolate bunnies will look familiar.  But since last year the boys were, um, less than impressed with my clever faux chocolate, this year I have made them for y'all instead!  Now they are available for you to have your very own!  That is unless you'd rather have a roa-err, palmetto bug for your easter basket? 

Shameless, I know, but if I don't plug myself then who will?

I heart Guitar Straps

First off let me say, thank you(!) to all of you who came by Etsy to check things out!   And wow!  Thanks to all of my new customers!  I have to admit though that when I got my first order I totally panicked.  I hadn't planned for actually selling stuff.  That's the genius behind my marketing, see?  I make all kinds of cool stuff, post photos of everything, but then in my secret trademark move, I keep it all (or give it away).  Genius, right?  It drives my husband crazy because he just doesn't get it...

Anyway, I have been working on a custom guitar strap order (I love guitar straps.  Guitar straps are my favorite) and they are turning out really well.  So well in fact that I want to keep them... This selling thing is going to take some getting used to...

The Etsy Shop is UP!

As much as I hate to bump that adorable photo of my delicious niece (did you all die when you saw that face?) I have an announcement!  Wait, I'm going to make you guess...Ok, 3 tries...

Seriously, I know I'm a week, err 9 days behind schedule but damn if it didn't take a LOT longer than I thought it would to get all of the photos taken, edited, resized (thanks again Erinn!), downloaded, uploaded and on and on...phew.  And I'm not even done.  But since the Etsy shop opens with the first listing I thought I should make the announcement here so you can all beat the throngs of holiday shoppers banging down my virtual door. 

What?  It could happen. 

Please go check it out!  I'd love to hear any feedback (or constructive criticism) that you might have for me.  You can leave comments here, use the convo feature on Etsy, or just email me!